


Strikhedonia

by CalMore



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Concert AU, F/F, F/M, M/M, Other, POV Jean Kirstein, POV Marco Bott, road trip au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-01
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 20:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3460298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalMore/pseuds/CalMore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jean Kirstein and Marco Bodt have known either for a year without ever actually meeting, and when Jean's friend Connie wins 11 tickets to the Amsterdam Music Festival that Marco also ends up at, they realise just how well they get on. And after Jean invites Marco to join him and his friends on their road trip around Europe, sometime's you just have to think 'to hell with it'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strikhedonia

**Strikhedonia**

_Dérive: origin: French (n.) lit. “drift”; a spontaneous journey where the traveler leaves their life behind for a time to let the spirit of the landscape and architecture attract and move them._

* * *

 

***

Adventure is a funny thing. By definition it’s an exciting or daring experience, and in almost every way possible it is, but not how you’d think. You’re faced with an infinity of new challenges and a whole fucking universe of opportunity. You have to take everything as it comes and not let it stop you because inevitably you’re always moving - and not always forward. The friendships you make and cherish are tried and tested to the limits, and you find out about each other all over again and some new things too. In one word? It’s life changing.

This is what our adventure was. Not just me and him, but all of us together. We fell in love with one another in different ways and levels, and even managing to keep our god damn dignity in check whilst doing so. Well, mostly anyway. This is what our journey was, our trip together. I can’t say it didn’t change me and impact so many choices and moves I’ve made to this day - I’m sure he’d tell you the same - and it’s for that very reason I, we, want to share it.

So here goes nothing; go laugh with all the anecdotes, go cry with all the memories - and most importantly - go fall in love with our adventure just as much as we did.

***

It all started with a very short phone call I received from an extremely loud, shrill, and excited Connie Springer at one AM.

“JEAN OH MY GOD I WON! I MOTHERFUCKING WON; WE’RE GOING BITCH YOU BETTER BE READY BY THE END OF THE WEEK!” I remember sitting for a good minute, firstly recovering from my bleeding ear drums, and secondly staring at my phone with confusion that I’m pretty sure looked like pure disgust with the crusty, squinty and sleep deprived glare I was giving the device. Nothing in my brain could process the blur of information the guy had given me so I decided to grumble a few curses and roll back over into my cocoon of bedding and musty smell. Slowly my mind was drifting and I could feel my body and glare starting to relax, when a quiet question and realisation crept its way behind my eyelids.

_He won?_

I sat bolt upright in bed not giving a damn about the disgusting head-rush and grabbed clumsily for my phone. It clattered to the floor along with my alarm clock that sent green beams of light across the floor, and I hastily went to grab it - my heart thumping in my chest - and then loudly and very ungracefully fell to the floor. I let a ‘fuck’ or two slip from my mouth as I texted furiously back to Connie not caring for spelling mistakes in my excitement.

To: connie-monkey-springer

>> NO FUCKIGN WAY YUO DID NOT??!!

I was sat surrounded by my collapsed comforter grasping my phone and staring bug-eyed at the LED screen desperately waiting for a response. It buzzed twice within 30 seconds of me sending my message, and 3 times more within 2 minutes of Connie’s call, but none of the messages were from Connie.

From: jaeger bombastic

>> DID YOU HEAR FROM CONNIE

>> CAN YOU FUCKING BELIEVE IT

From: Sash

>> AMF HERE WE COME BABYYYYYY

From: Bertl

>> We’re actually going!!

>> brb Reiner’s crying (he’s just happy dw)

After receiving messages from almost everyone in the space of five minutes I was utterly shocked. My mouth had been stuck hung wide open for the whole time that I had been reading my messages. A whole number of thoughts had been running through my head: how was Connie telling everyone this fast? What would I have to pack? Am I shaking? _Is this really happening?_

For the first time in a long time, the largest grin plastered its way onto my face and I scrunched my eyes shut fucking squealing. I kicked out my legs repeatedly and ended up just jumping up to revel in my excited adrenaline - it took every ounce of my control not to shout out and wake the whole neighbourhood. I span round still grinning ear to ear with fucking victory music circling in my head (I was pretty glad no one could see me). Connie, of all the people who had entered the MTV contest, had won. And he’d won the prize everyone wanted, the best they’d had going since who knows when: a trip for himself and 10 others to go to the Amsterdam Music Festival in Europe. This was going to be fucking insane.

**

I should probably explain things a bit better up to this point. About a month ago Connie, Sasha and I were at my house watching a shit load of movies; one of Sasha’s ridiculous traditions that she liked to keep up every month. We’d decided on my house because we’d recently got a gigantic flat screen with surround sound in the TV room. It’s only my Mom and I at home so I don’t really understand why she got it. So Connie bought round a bunch of action movies as we’d decided that was the genre we were going for, so naturally we had movies like Die Hard, Taken, The Bourne Trilogy (the fourth one didn’t happen okay) and other hideously loud and violent films. However half way through the second Bourne film Sash decided she’d had enough and wanted something to cheer her up from the “depressing lives of assassins”, so we flicked on MTV to listen to some shitty pop music.

No one was home but us so we blared the top 10 dance charts - which were playing ‘Rather Be’ - as loud as we could. It was dumb and deafening, but fun; Connie and Sasha both had no shame in dancing, no, performing the song on the coffee table screeching at the top of their lungs and I totally didn’t join in, too cool for that shit. I’ll admit that with all the sarcastic and cynical shit that comes out my mouth ninety percent of the time that most people expect me to have the same pretentious attitude to music, but music is the only thing I’m completely non-judgmental about; let people listen to what they like, you know? My own personal music selection was interesting enough too; varying from Avicii to Daughter, I always told people it just depends on how I’m feeling. I never saw the harm with a terrible bass-y ass pop song with a heavy beat to pick me up when I was in the right mood.

After the charts had been playing through and hit number one it faded off; a loud and colourful ad starting to play: _“Now, I hope you’re all ready for our new competition announcement, by far the best we’ve had on offer yet!”_

“Guys , shut up I want to listen!” Connie had shouted, faced basically smeared and drooling in awe against my new flat screen.

“Get your ugly face off my new TV, asshole!” I yelled yet still laughing from our exhausting dance party for three. The only response I got was an abrupt shushing and fanning hands telling us to ‘pipe down’. Sasha and I exchanged a look of mischief and proceeded to tackle our monkey-headed friend.

He growled and tried to pry away from our hold, but the contest details managed to get us all to shut up. _“Our latest competition prize is definitely the jackpot! MTV will be sending the winner along with a party group of 10 friends to the Amsterdam Music Festival in Europe, with an amazing total of 11 tickets and €10,000 to spend between everyone! It’s a trip of a life time and all you have to do is answer this question:”_

By this point all three of us were a bundle in the floor with eyes ridiculously wide and mouths so wide I’m surprised none of us had dislocated a jaw. When they were about to announce the question we were all shouting between us to beg for the question.

_“Who was a member of the Rock Band ‘The Beatles’? Is it A) John Lennon B) John Legend or C) John Lemon: Call this number to give your answer…”_

It took approximately 2.3 seconds for Connie to grab his phone and jam in the number required for option A. Meanwhile, Sasha and I were laughing our asses off at the horrific other options that some people might genuinely believe were the correct answers. I was clutching my stomach in pain as Sasha helplessly breathed out the words ‘John Lemon’ over and over. I rolled onto my side trying to stop laughing and saw Connie repeatedly calling the number over and over.I managed a frown between laughs and kicked a foot into his side “You don’t think you’ll actually win do you?” I laughed in disbelief as I propped myself up on one elbow. But Connie only shot me a look and mumbled to himself small ‘you never know’s and ‘it’s worth a shot’. I laughed when he talked about it all week. I told him to shut up when he told everyone else about it. It had started to become tedious when he wouldn’t stop talking about it and planned out the whole festival weekend. I told him it was never going to happen.

I ate my fucking words when I got that one AM phone call.

And so here we were, stood at the airport waiting to depart; although there had been a _slight_ catch. MTV had advertised the tickets and the money, but never specified plane tickets or any sort of fucking transport or accommodation. After we got a crudely polite email telling us this we almost gave up. We checked to see if the money could be converted but apparently it was unable to be exchanged so we couldn’t book hotel rooms and taxis in advance (of which they all demanded prepayment, and there was no way there would be anything free on the actual festival weekend) - I’d never seen Connie so crushed, it really bummed all of us out seen as we’d been ridiculously hyped for it. But a ray of glorious sunshine that was Mikasa Ackerman gave us the best news I think we’d heard all week.

“I have a distant relative in Germany. He runs a garage with scrap cars so I’m sure we could arrange something.” Apparently the guy wasn’t very friendly and wanted to have his own space away from relatives and so moved to Berlin to start up. Talk about dumb luck for us that it’s only a 6 hour drive from Berlin to Amsterdam.

“Hey, Jeanbo, come on they called our flight; the adventure starts now!” Sasha beamed as she ran ahead in front of everyone else, Connie running to catch up with her and consequently jumping on her back. This didn’t seem to faze Sasha though as she just kept running with Connie wildly laughing in her ear.

I shook my head to concentrate on the here and now - going to our flight to start this crazy journey. I shrugged my ginormous hiking backpack back onto my shoulder and dragged my suitcase along behind me; paying for flights alone was a push for some of us, but we were going to make damn sure it was worth it. I jogged a bit to catch up with Eren and Armin, and as I did Eren looped am arm around mine and Armin’s necks breathing in deep and sighing out loudly.

“This is it; it’s going to be god damn amazing guys I can tell.” he grinned wolfishly.

Normally I would’ve shoved Eren and told him to piss off, but not today, because he was right. This trip was going to be fucking great. I gave a small laugh between my teeth and nudged him in the side to let him know that I still thought he was an idiot, but that he was still right. We heard Reiner up ahead telling our ‘soppy asses’ to move or else we’d miss our flight, so we promptly ran to catch up.

We managed to get to the gate in time; everyone but Bert getting through security. “Babe, come on, I tell you _every time_ that you have to take your belt off.” Reiner sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Bert on the other side of security just wobbled awkwardly with a nervous as fuck expression as the officer patted his sides. As he hurriedly walked over to join us he whined to Reiner about how he always gets so nervous that he just forgets to do it, and everyone else (including me) laughed at him for the entire time.

Our seats on the plane were all in order so we were all sat in all of rows J and some of K, I was sat by the window next to Connie and Sasha next to him. I cried internally because I was god damn terrified of what they’re going to be like for the next 8 and a half hours on a small and boring plane. God help me.

We took off fine after about 20 minutes of being delayed as they had to clear snow off of the run way (that’s what we get for leaving in mid-March I guess). I looked over to everyone else as the plane was at a 40° angle; Ymir was complaining to Historia about how her lanky ass wasn’t comfy in her chair. Reiner was already asleep on Bert’s shoulder, Bert himself reading. Annie was quietly looking out the window on the opposite side to me with Mikasa sat next to her immersed in her own thoughts. Of course Sasha and Connie were fucking buzzing, but what caught my eye was Eren tightly holding Armin’s hand. I leant forward more to look over and Armin with a confused frown on my face, but it was totally obvious when I saw his expression; he looked fucking terrified. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut and he was biting his lip hard, I was thoroughly surprised it wasn’t bleeding. Eren was looking worriedly yet assuredly at him though - not that he could see - and whispering to him; must’ve been reassuring to Armin because his expression was softening slowly.

As the plane levelled out and the seat belt sign switched off everything eased into a natural flow. I managed to feign sleep to avoid the demon duo who pestered a much too polite Bert instead (I’m sorry Bertl, your sacrifice would be remembered) but after the first hour and a half it turned from fake to real sleep.

I woke about 5 hours later which was a god send because I never really liked long plane journeys purely for the fact that I got too bored. I sat up from my slumped and uncomfortable position to crack my back and at the same time looked around at everyone else; surprisingly everyone but Eren was asleep.

“Psst,” I whispered to Eren - leaning over the limp bodies of Connie and Sasha - as most of the plane was asleep by this point “How long have you been up?” I asked groggily as I managed to rub the sleep out of my eye.

He frowned at me “I haven’t.”

“Aren’t you tired, man? It’s like 3am back home.” Eren only proceeded to grasp Armin’s hand tighter and look away; had he been holding his hand the entire time? I sighed and leant back into my seat, resting my chin in my palm on the arm rest to get a more comfortable look out the window. All that I managed to see beyond the reflection of my face was pure black and the occasional lighter shade of cloud; not much of a sight basically. I decided instead to focus in on my own tired as fuck face. I had considerable purple tinted bags under my eyes, although the black frames of my glasses covered them slightly. My hair was in a complete mess, small cowlicks sticking up in every which way possible - heck I already had morning stubble creeping its way onto my chin and jawline.

I sighed through my nose and prayed that I could fall asleep for the remaining 2 hours, trying to work out in my head what time it would be in Berlin. I had to add 6 hours, so it should have been something like 11am when we arrived. Fuck me it was going to be almost midday and feel like 5am. I rubbed my face with my hands and groaned.

“What?” I heard Eren say to my right.

I crushed my forehead into the fold-up tray in front of me and mumbled “It’s going to feel like shit when we arrive.”

Eren scrunched up his face in confusion “Why?”

“Because jet-lag isn’t fun, it’s like being all discombobulated in another country; it’s not great.”

I could feel his tense aura emanating off of him and looked over to see him click his jaw in frustration. He scowled and me and mumbled low and aggressively “Fuck you, the hell do you mean?”

I mentally punched myself in the face. How could I forget, even if I was this tired? “Eren I’m sorry, man. I’m just tired I forgot.” His expression let up a fraction and he sealed his lips to hide his snare. “I just meant that you can’t really make sense of anything if you’re that tired, you know what I mean?” He just nodded curtly and sat back in a huff.

I let out a sigh of relief that he let it go and didn’t get loud like usual. I still couldn’t believe I forgot. Eren had told all of us about his autism back when we were in high school - and early high school at that. To be honest I felt almost relieved there was an explanation to all of his outbursts, but Armin told us that he was just frustrated most of the time. Eren struggled hard with a few things in particular. Firstly he never really knew what was socially acceptable to say in certain situations; for example when he asked Bert why he was crying so much after his mom was in a car accident last year. He just didn’t understand emotional reactions like that, nor did he know how to react to them himself. The other thing was long words, like what I just used; after he heard them the rest of the sentence was just gibberish to him and made no sense, so we all had to be careful to use easy language around him, which we’d all become accustomed to by now. I was still mad at myself for forgetting.

I rubbed my face and sighed, leaning back in my seat to get comfortable, and God graced me with another 2 hours of sleep.

**

The plane landed pretty ungracefully waking most on the flight, Connie and Sasha included who practically screamed as the wheels bounced off of the runway. As we came screeching to a halt I blinked like rapid fire trying to wake myself up and stretched out. I heard Ymir grumbling in the seat in front of me and so promptly kicked it to ‘reassure her’ into getting her ass out of it (which wasn’t well received).

After making a small scene between Ymir and I we all managed to shuffle off the plane, saying mumbled thank you’s to the flight attendants as they wished us a happy holiday. We all managed to get our way through security and customs before making our way to collect our luggage. It didn’t take long luckily so we all trailed off one by one with our rucksacks and duffle bags. I caught up to Reiner who had been the unannounced navigator due to his singular hiking experience from when he was 15. He was holding a crumbled, coffee stained piece of paper with messy hand writing scrawled all over it; I tried reading it but was all in fucking hieroglyphics and code.

“What the hell is all that?” I nodded to the paper in Reiner’s beef-like hands.

He didn’t look up from the sheet and continued to frown scrupulously at it, “Instructions.”

“Instructions?” I replied dryly, but I didn’t receive and answer this time. I huffed and trailed back to be level with Eren and Mikasa. Mikasa looked at me with an expressionless face and managed to talk to me about something that wasn’t a target to my high school crush on her that I was _long_ past.

“The instructions are from my relative, he sent me the details on what the arrangements were,” she said softly, but not maintaining eye contact with me. I nodded at her gratefully for telling me, but curiosity has started to get the better of me; who was this guy? How was he even related to her? Was it a bad choice trusting someone she’d never even met before? But never-the-less my thoughts were interrupted by a pair of shrill monkeys in my ear.

“JEAN!” Sasha called dramatically as she jumped on my back, forcing me to hold her lest we both fall on our asses “You aren’t _nearly_ hyped enough you miserable bastard, come on!” She giggled excitedly and kicked her legs between the gaps in my arms.

Connie joined in with her incessant giggling and started up a two man chant of ‘A-M-F’, although it caught the attention of a group of guys walking past who contributed to their excitement by cheering and whooping along before disappearing - a sure fire sign that this was going to be a rad concert.

The two of them managed to pick up my mood, and I was about to laugh as we picked up speed to run round the corner with our luggage towards the departure zone, when I saw a sign that said in big bold black letters: ‘SHIT HEADS’ and fell short of my laughter and found only stunned, stiff silence. It wasn’t the sign which fazed me though; it was the guy holding it.

He couldn’t have been any taller than 160cm - even in his black leather Doc Martens - wearing all black with a cigarette clamped between his teeth. He had endless amounts of piercings and rose tattoos either side of his collar bones. As we got closer I could see he had and eyebrow piercing over his left eye, two lip rings on the same left side and I don’t even know how many in his ears; they were covered at the top somewhat by his overgrown black mop of an undercut. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of aviators and yet I could still managed to see his scowl; I felt like even if I couldn’t see it he would make a point of making sure you knew that he was glaring.

“Um,” Reiner mumbled beside me, looking as nervous and awkward as Bert had at security “Are you Mr Ackerman?” he offered politely to the man in front of us.

The guy proceeded to turn to face Reiner very slowly, sarcasm dripping off of his every move, and he tipped his shades down the bridge of his nose with a sharp turn of his head. “You call me Mr Ackerman again,” the cigarette bobbed as he spoke, his voice coarse and a lot deeper than I was expecting “and I’ll leave you brats here to fend for yourselves, got it?” he growled as he punctuated every harsh syllable with a snare.

Poor Reiner was stood in disbelief (bottom lip fucking quivering) as the evil little shit in front continued to glower at us like you would at not less than dirt. He stepped around Reiner and shoved his hands in his pockets, having already discarded his charming sign in the nearest trash can, and said in a gritty, droll tone “Don’t get left behind.”

Despite already taking a potent dislike to the guy, I was also scared shitless of him; I have no shame in saying so because I only had to take one look at every one else to confirm that the feeling was mutual - all but Mikasa that was. We all collected our bags ASAP and jogged as a small mob to catch up with his march. As we caught up though, Mikasa bee lined to the front up next to him and simply started up a conversation like it was nothing.

“You could’ve made a better first impression.”

He simply give her a once over that I can only describe as disgusted yet still respectful of the fact that she had the balls to talk to him with no reserve. “You must be my niece huh,” he offered as more of a statement than a question.

“I refuse to call you uncle,” she replied coldly.

“Good,” the guy gestured to us all over his shoulder with a flippant hand “The same goes for all of you, just call me Levi; none of this Mr Ackerman bullshit or you’re all walking to your damn concert, got it?”

We all nodded quickly yet curtly and continued to follow him through to the airport parking lot. Eventually Levi trudged up to a car that was basically the same size as a small tank (and looked of the same old and crumbling quality). He yanked at the door on the side of the vehicle and it screeched open, black paint chips falling off the door as he did; it looked and sounded like the damn thing hadn’t been opened in centuries. He made a sharp gesture with his head for us to pile in, throwing his cigarette on the ground and stamping it out at the same time.

I was stuck at the back of the small queue we had formed to get into the metal death trap and was standing by Eren. I was about to get in when he grabbed the sleeve of my jacket and said a bit too loudly “He’s so cool.” His eyes seemed to fricking sparkle, which looked ridiculous with the perma-frown on his face.

I could only look at him like he was crazy, but flinched and moved my ass as fast as I could into the van when I heard the front door slam shut followed by “I told you not to get left behind. Hurry the fuck up.”

**

The journey wasn’t too long, and most of us just stayed quiet and as still as possible in the surprisingly immaculate interior of the van, it was a severe contrast to the ancient acidic looking exterior. Berlin itself was surprisingly beautiful. I’d never been to Germany or ever really seen photos of it despite having German relations myself (they were distant family anyway; I couldn’t tell you any of their names). I could see the pinnacle of the Berlin Tower from almost every road we swerved down and round, its needle-like structure glinting in the midday sunlight. There wasn’t much foliage around but countless amounts of old and beautiful buildings. Before I got into art it always seemed peculiar to me to describe a building as beautiful, but when I looked closer and saw it with eyes that knew the history, the detail, the absolute devotion to every meticulous carving of stone, I saw the beauty of it within a heartbeat; and that’s what I saw here. Unlike back home where most houses on one street were the same white washed two-story detached house, every single building here was individual and unlike any other, and I was envious and in awe of this city for it.

After driving for about twenty five minutes of day dreamt buildings and winding roads we reached somewhere called Lausitzer Street and Levi pulled sharply into a turning half way down. We tracked down a short gravelly path and pulled to a stop. Everyone groaned and stretched as Levi raised an elbow on the back of his seat to arch back and speak to us. “Alright listen up, this building is a business, not a playhouse, so respect it. Don’t touch anything; not the cars or the parts or the shit that fixes them. You don’t do shit without my say-so, got it?” there were collective yes’ and agreements, so we just proceeded to get out after he had shut his door and lit another cigarette to confirm that the talk was officially over.

I stepped out last and took time to appreciate the place and all its glory. The garage itself was pretty fucking huge. It was jammed between the back of four buildings respectively making a square gap for it to fit into perfectly and the 15 metre or so gap from the wall on the left of the way in and the front of the garage. The front was completely open with no doors (I assumed there was a collapsible roof that came down from who knows where). It was tall enough to fit a lorry and more some, yet looked like it was almost entirely made out of corrugated iron. The others looked less than impressed that this is where we would be staying for a day or two, but my heart fucking sang.

My Dad owned a garage on the other side of Trost to where I lived and I grew up visiting him at work and having him explain to me how cars worked, how to change a tyre, hooking up extra batteries, jump starting engines and rewiring parts. It used to be his whole life fixing up cars, which is kind of the reason my parents spilt when I was twelve, but I realised seven years later that it really was for the best. My Mom was an absolute perfectionist with OCD so having my Dad come home all greased up from his workshop and throwing gross clothes soaked in oil and burnt from stray welding sparks did not impress my Mom. I had an alright relationship with the both of them so I was fine. But it really was like a dream to be able to potentially fix up an old car.

“How many jobs you get in a week?” I said to Levi without thinking, cars were my thing and this place was three times the size of my Dad’s. Least to say I was like a kid in a candy store.

He frowned and me like my answer was pending of something and he gave me the same kind of once over he had given Mikasa earlier. “Depends. If it’s just me here then maybe 15 and a couple of part fix ups and TUV’s, but if Erwin’s here too then more.” I think the look on my face showed how impressed I was because he laughed slightly through his nose (though can you call it a laugh if he wasn’t smiling?). “Come on kid, get inside.”

I did as he said and jogged to catch up with my group inside the garage. It was surprisingly warm inside considering an entire side of the workshop was open to the elements. There were two cars hoisted mid-air on automotive lifts - one of them in the process of an intense looking surgery, wires and the front snaking out of nooks and cranny’s and the axle hanging off like a tumour of the beast. The person working on it was hidden behind a mask whilst sparked flew from the welding torch they were using. But what caught my eye was the collection of old cars in the corner of the room, about six or seven of them, and amongst them I saw it.

It was a land rover, and not an old one. I always hated new models; they were too clunky and shiny for me. This wasn’t shiny. It was beat up and was maybe once white, but now it was dusty and the dried up mud had formed a new layer epidermis on its original paint job. A head light was missing and the other was cracked beyond repair. Both wing mirrors were barely hanging on - the left relying on duck-tape as its last hope. The seats that were once in the back and had been ripped out mercilessly were propped up against the side of the vehicle along with one of the doors and a tyre. The back axel was crooked and needed fixing, everything modern and cool that it was advertised for was gone, the glass was broken in the windscreen, all the tyres were flat; it was an almost unsalvageable piece of shit.

And I was _in love_.

“Whose car is that?” I asked to anyone who was listening whilst the others made idle and quiet chatter, pointing to the wreck from where I was standing.

Levi was on his way up a set of stairs, climbing two at a time to a protruding block of sorts that looked to be an office space supported by black metal beams and the staircase itself, but he stopped and turned around seeing my interest unlike the others. He leaned both arms on the banister and ran a hand through his hair. “It was from a guy who had been travelling in the Harz Mountains and for some reason thought he could repair it himself when he got back to Berlin. The idiot came in with it on a tow and asked us to fix it. So, a dumbass employee ordered in all the parts but when I told him the cost he fucked off and left the piece of shit here a week ago,” he grumbled as he peeled off his sun glasses to reveal sharp, dark eyes with equally dark under circles complemented by furrowing eyebrows that reminded me of Eren’s.

I tried hard to hide my bubbling excitement, “What a bummer.” Levi simply scoffed and continued up the stairs in to a tiny office.

“This place is so frickin’ awesome!” Sasha cooed in my ear as she leapt onto my shoulders, her hands like a vice in my collarbones. She squealed and kicked her legs out as Connie and Ymir ran to examine one of the cars on an automotive lift.

Historia spoke up quickly, “Guys don’t touch anything! Remember what Levi said.”

Her efforts were wasted on her lanky freckled girlfriend though who simply scoffed and waved her off “We’ll be fine, shrimpy ain’t got nothing on me babe trust me.” She proceeded to poke at some of the loose gears on the floor with her grotty sneakers, though even Connie cringed at the horrific gritty screech they made on the concrete floor as she did.

From the back we heard Annie clicking her fingers to catch our attention and elbowed Bert to talk, who panicked to her first before addressing us, “Oh, sorry, Annie said that we should be careful because there are other people working here who could potentially give us as much a punishment as Levi.” Annie proceeded to stagnantly look at Ymir the most for the message to sink in.

“Yeah yeah Tommy Walker I got it,” Ymir sighed as she slugged back over to loop an arm over Historia’s little shoulders to which Annie simply replied with flicking her one off.

We were all pretty sick of Ymir’s mute jokes by now, I mean we had all been used to Annie being mute for 3 years since her accident. It had always been a bit awkward talking with her seen as Bert was the only one who knew how to sign before she’d needed it, however we’d all gotten used to it and adjusted to it by now. But 3 years on Ymir still felt the need to enter her unamusing commentary despite being at the bane of her girlfriend’s tiny elbows digging into her hips as a result. It was a pretty standard punishment for her.

“Listen up dipshits,” was the call that echoed around the room and turned our attention to the staircase where Levi stood, arms folded, “Here’s the plan: You’re going to all be fixing up whatever junk you can find in here to ride around in for however long you need it on your trip.” My eyes flicked to the land rover, “I’ve been told you all have bucket loads of cash to pay up with for whatever the fuck you need to repair so go nuts.” There was gathered excitement and we all started to chat, but he clearly wasn’t finished, “Hey!” he scaled down the stairs in a huff to reach us before we could get too excited. “There is no way in hell you’re going to be able to fix at least 4 cars by yourselves,” and with that he whistled with his fingers in his mouth.

In less than 2 seconds of Levi whistling, any previous commotion or activity in the workshop halted and a team of 3 had assembled in a unified straight line beside him. “These are all the staff here that will be available to help you. They’ve had first-hand experience with just about everything so ask them whatever you need to know.”

“We can pick them?” Eren asked, frowning so deeply his nose was turned up.

Levi didn’t even give him the time of day and continued, “Are there any questions?”

“We can pick them?” Eren repeated, slightly louder than before, but this time Levi sighed and acknowledged him this time.

“Pick what?”

Eren just persisted, “We can pick them?” It was a way of his speaking that we were all very much used to; he would repeated a question because he wasn’t able to be specific, so he would keep asking until you understood what he meant and then got an answer. However Levi was unaware of Eren’s autism and showed it.

“Look kid, pick the people, pick the cars, pick your nose; I don’t give a shit. I’ll be in my office if anyone needs me, not like you should.” And with that he slithered away without another word.

No one said anything until the door was firmly shut, and collectively everyone in the room released a sigh of relief. Following our respite, a short woman who had been standing in line stepped forward. She had light strawberry blonde hair that was cut short around her neck. Her white t-shirt was smeared in oil and so was her full body blue overall that was tied at the sleeves around her waist. She smiled apologetically, “Sorry about Levi, he hasn’t got a lot of patience for talking for extended amounts of time.” Rather than noticing her co-workers laughing in agreement, her strong Nordic accent caught my attention first. “He does mean well, he must do if he’s letting a bunch of Uni students take our scraps for a trip; consider yourselves lucky. Plus, you’ve got the best mechanics team in all of Brandenburg here to help!”

“Whoo, you bet kids!” Another person from the formation line called as they looped an arm round the younger woman’s neck “We’re Levi’s personal car squad and any help you need we’re happy to oblige,” they beamed at us. Their long brown hair was tussled in a loose ponytail and they had a pair of welding goggles pushed up onto top of their head only to make it messier. “My name’s Hange, This is Petra Ral,” they gestured to the golden haired woman, “and that mess over there is Auruo Bossard.”

The last guy in line stepped forward in protest, although even the way he carried himself seemed to scream ‘pretentious asshole’. However as he was about to speak Hange shoved a hand on his face and pushed him back, his very badly cut tawny hair getting yanked in the process.

There were mumbled formalities and polite smiles before Armin spoke up, “Um, what if we’ve never done car repair work before?”

Petra smiled assuredly, “That’s what we’re here for. I know there are a lot of you here but if you get together in groups then we can help you collectively.” Armin smiled back, seemingly satisfied with the answer she gave, and Petra clapped her hands together and grinned. “Well now for the fun part then, everyone gets to choose their vehicle! All the ones to choose from are at the back of the workshop, just don’t pick any that are too unsalvageable.”

I felt my eyes light up like fireworks on the fourth of July and set my sights on the Land Rover. I could feel a sly grin creeping its way onto my face as I could feel the excitement bubbling up inside me. Never had I thought I’d ever actually get the opportunity to work on a whole car, rather than a collection of stray parts my Dad would let me play with. This was no toy; this was a man’s work, and I couldn’t wait to feel the cool metal parts beneath my calloused fingers, slowly bringing a life and soul back into the beast with a hum and a purr. Although in my peripheral vision I could see that same fire in the eyes of Eren fucking Jaeger right beside me. _Hell_ no.

We didn’t even need to look at each other before we bolted straight for it. I could hear that Aurulo guy (or whatever his name was) shouting after us to slow down and to not break anything, but like hell was that stopping me. I felt a deep growl seething in my throat as I glanced over to Eren’s smug grin; if there was at least one thing Eren did understand well enough it was competition. I leapt over car parts as they flew passed my feet and slammed myself onto the hood of the car as soon as it was within reach.

“Fuck off!” Eren whined from next to me, his harsh breaths punctuating his irritation.

“No way are you getting this car, man. I saw it first.” I knew it was childish to use that line but I really didn’t care; I could tell that this was my baby and no way was any angry-ghibli-tears-Jaeger separating a mother from its child.

He growled and grumbled but I refused to move from my hugging position on the bonnet of the Land Rover. I scowled at him so hard that I don’t think I could’ve squinted my eyes any more so, nor emanated more of a dark ‘don’t-you-fucking-dare’ aura that even _he_ could understand. Eventually he dug his hands deep in his pockets and shuffled away to a dark van that Mikasa was inspecting meticulously. Victory was _mine_.

“So you picked this beast huh?” Hange cooed from behind, wiping a grease slicked hand across her forehead, smudging pre-existing oil over her face.

Falling with about as much grace as Bambi on ice I slunk of the Land Rover and hopped back a few steps to greet Hange. She continued to look at me waiting for an answer, so I smiled sheepishly and mumbled “She called out to me I guess.”

Something seemed to glint in her eyes and Hange’s grin was so wild I thought she was going to pounce on me. “So how do you know mechanics then? You learning engineering at college or what?”

My eyes blinked owlishly in surprise and I turned to fully face Hange. Right hand snaking to the back of my neck I replied “My Dad owns a garage back home, but I’m not studying it.” Some form of disappointment flickered in her eyes, but she continued to smile none-the-less. A perplexed frown wormed its way onto my face, “How did you know I knew about mechanics?”

The laughed that echoed violently reverberated around the whole garage bubbled up slowly before erupting into something that sounded more like a howl so loud even Levi stuck his head out from the tiny office. I cringed at the volume and from a weird mix of confusion and embarrassment. She wiped a seemingly non-existent tear from her eye and leant an elbow on my shoulder heavily, “No ordinary person refers to a car as she, or say that said car ‘called out to them’ without being as passionate for cars and Di Vinci was for paint.”

I squeaked out a nervous breathy laugh and kept my hand at my nape, massaging it in embarrassment. Before I could comment any further though, she had leapt from my side to skip behind the vehicle. I assumed I was meant to follow and anxiously slunk to where she was shuffling around various cardboard boxes sealed up with copious amounts of duck-tape. Hange managed to wrangle up 4 boxes in a row that were big enough that they came up to my thighs.

One greasy hand patted the nearest box to her leg and she beamed at me. “These are all the parts you’ll need to fix it up. Auruo ordered them in before the owner paid so everything you’ll need is here.” Ah, so that guy was the idiot did it. Hange started to totter away with her hands intrinsically linked behind her. She started to whistle a tune as I called after her.

“Are you not going to tell me what any of this is?” I frowned.

She promptly spun round with a devilishly mischievous look on her face. “Do I need to?” and with that she twirled back around and marched over to where Petra was helping Bert pick out a car that wasn’t too busted up.

I tried hard to be pissed off that I was the only one being left without assistance, but the corners of my mouth betrayed me and slowly upturned into an idiot grin that I had to bite my lip to hide (badly). I observed all the parts in the boxes and took each of them apart one by one (and furiously tried to get all the fucking gaff tape from sticking to me). They were already arranged in size order depending on what box they were in; there were infinite amounts of cogs and wires and even more heavy duty parts, but Hange had been right, I knew exactly what to do with all of the parts to get this big heap of metal working like a whistle again. God I was ecstatic.

But just as I was rolling up the sleeves of my plaid shirt, ready to get my hands dirty, a deep voice called from not too far away, “Aren’t any of you exhausted? Why not take a break before starting?”

The German accent was thick and sounded like what my mom would call a chocolate-syrup-voice; all rich and molten. My perma-frown was scrunched up even more so than usual when looking around for where the voice came from. I caught Connie’s eye, he simply gave an exaggerated ‘I have no fucking clue either’ shrug and looked around the same as me. However just as Connie was about to say something, a tall man glided round a doorframe in the far wall of the shop that I hadn’t noticed before.

“There you are you miserable piece of shit, where’ve you been all morning?” Levi grumbled loudly, trudging down the stairs with a snarl towards the man. Everyone parted like the fucking red sea when he stormed past like death itself.

“Good Morning to you too, Liebste,” his chuckle was low and warm, but any tenderness that it carried flew straight over Levi’s head and he stalked up to the poor guy. Well, having said ‘poor guy’, he was definitely over six foot and could probably pick up Levi by the scruff of his neck like a misbehaved puppy. He certainly had strong enough arms for it, because despite being short Levi still seemed to be particularly bulky with muscle.

“Don’t give me any of that lovey dovey bullshit just because there are people here, Erwin,” Levi growled “You were meant to take calls whilst I was gone; we’ve missed two clients already.”

He looked vehemently at the guy towering over him, but he - Erwin - just laughed again and kissed the top of his head gently. I think just about everyone in the room but those who worked at the garage were stood in stunned silence at the unadulterated bravery this man had to do that to one of the scariest men I think any of us had ever seen or met. (Aside from our high school home room teacher Mr Shadis, but we’ll not go into that.)

“I’m sorry, Levi. Shall we discuss this later though when we don’t have quite so many people around?” Erwin gestured for Levi to look at our collected group that had slowly shuffled closer to them as their domestic had been going on, but Levi didn’t turn, he only grumbled something in coherent. “Glad you agree,” he laughed warmly.

I looked over to the others before he started talking again to see Historia and Ymir - who were closest to him - giving each other a look. I tried to decipher it but it I didn’t have to as Erwin moved forward to be completely in view of everyone. I tried not to stare but it was so hard not to when it was clear that from mid-bicep down, his entire right arm was missing. I wracked a hand through my mess of hair in an attempt to look casual as I’m sure the others were trying to do too.

“Why don’t you all come inside to rest? You must be tired from travelling all morning.”

“I think that would be appreciated, Sir, thankyou,” Reiner piped up. He seemed to be doing well at taking charge; either that or the power of being given the only map was going to his head, probably a bit of both knowing the guy.

Despite my internal conflict over Reiner’s confidence, I strode inside the door that Erwin had emerged from along with the others, bumping shoulders with Armin on the way in.

“Don’t say anything about his arm,” Armin whispered to me quickly as we passed each other.

I quirked an eyebrow “Why would I?”

He shook his head and leaned closer as we continued walking “You didn’t see Levi’s face when he noticed that we all saw it. It scared the hell out of me.” I turned back briefly to see if I could catch Levi’s face at the back, but couldn’t quite see (though by the sounds of it I’m sure I was lucky). I looked back to Armin and shrugged and he laughed slightly at my blasé response, flicking his short bangs out of his eye. He’d only recently cut his shoulder length hair short like Eren’s. Their cuts were really similar now thinking about it; they both had a side fringe (thank God for Eren, finally getting rid of his fucking middle parting) but Eren’s was still naturally scruffier than Armin’s neat hair.

I shook myself out of my weird internal debate on my friends’ haircuts and focused primarily on the building we’d been taken into. Erwin took us up a set of stairs at the back, but I could just about see through a doorway to the front of the building which was clearly the store front - it was light and impeccably clean for a garage reception. Everything else inside was fairly dark with plenty of rich reds and a patterned evergreen carpet that ran up the stairs. The wall running opposite the oak banisters was coated in plenty of mismatching frames that were full of photos of countless faces. Surprisingly not many were of Erwin and Levi but of many of - what I assumed were - their friends. Most of them were at the beach and the freeze frame laughs were as warm as the day seemed to be that they were taken; it almost made me smile too. I also noticed some frames that had older more worn photos that looked like they were from the army with both Erwin and Levi and a third man who was incredibly tall with a ratty mustache. There were a lot of that man now looking at the wall, but none that looked recent.

When we got to the top of the narrow stairs, we all piled into an open plan living/dining room, and once again there were photos everywhere you looked, accompanied by endless amounts of small flowers and ivy hanging baskets in the crook of the huge bay window that faced out onto the street. The couches and chairs were dark leather and looked well worn, the rug on the floor equally as worn. There was also a piano on the back wall next to a door that presumably led to the rest of the house.

“Your home is so lovely,” Historia smiled, she was looking at some of the photos on the wall. We all chimed in with hummed agreements and compliments.

Erwin chuckled lightly, “Thankyou, it’s not as organised as Levi would like but it’s comfortable at least.”

As he spoke of the devil too there was a terrifying holler that came from the bottom of the stairs, “You all better have taken your fucking shoes of because so help me God if there is a spec of dirt in my house-“ and I shit you not I would rather have ripped off my own feet than have Levi seen me in my shoes at that moment.

**

After a few minutes of settling ourselves into that room like a Tetris game and Erwin offering everyone a drink and a biscuit (and Connie embarrassingly asking him if he ‘needed a hand’ with the mugs before realising exactly what he’d said) we all realised just how tired we were. Sleep suddenly exhausted me like trying to swim through tar; I was so adamant on staying awake but my eyes were like lead weights and refused to stay open any longer than five seconds. I never fell asleep, but I did rest my head on Sasha’s shoulder as she played with the fuzzy part of my undercut and the stubble on my jaw.

“You need a shave Mr Macho Man,” she giggled. I poked her in the leg and mumbled for her to shut up and only nuzzled more into her shoulder.

“So,” Erwin drawled out as he lowered himself into an armchair that everyone had left purposefully for him “Where exactly are you going on your journey? I remember travelling used to be so exhilarating when I was young too.”

And as if summoned, Connie bolted upright with a grin plastered on his face like nothing I’d ever seen before, and we all collectively sighed because none of us had the energy to listen to Connie get tell the tale of his contest win for the umpteenth time, but that didn’t stop him in the slightest. Before we knew it he was wildly using his arms to fully animate and emphasise the grandeur of his story; I don’t think Erwin quite knew what he got himself into when he asked, but if he was taken aback in the least he never showed it.

My eyes started to drift again as I watched Connie get to the part where he actually got the phone call from MTV. Eventually I could feel myself start to relax into sleep as I could hear from the few silent snores around the room from people who had done the same. Even as I started to fall into a well needed sleep all that could pass through my mind was excitement; fixing up my beautiful car, going on the road, the concert, the music, the whole damn adventure we were about to go on. And despite falling asleep on the first day with drool already on my chin, _I was fucking ecstatic_.

**Author's Note:**

> It's genuinely taken me 5 months to write this ;v; I really should've just sat down and wrote it all at once rather than drawl it out over so long.. 
> 
> Being the fist chapter this was mainly just to give a layout of the characters as some are different from the canonverse - the main changes being that Eren has autism (an no middle parting lol) and Annie is mute. Sorry if was a bit all over the place I just wanted to get it out there because I'd had enough mulling over it for so long! 
> 
> The next chapter will be Marco and then back to Jean (so alternate POV), unfortunately they don't meet until chapter 4 and Marco's chapter will be quite wordy without a lot of interaction, but it'll be explained obviously 'v' 
> 
> Any feedback would be incredibly appreciated! I really hope anyone who read this enjoyed it c: 
> 
> **  
> (also liebste means darling in German for anyone who wanted to know, and yes, Sasha calling Jean macho man was a reference to wisteria/forget-me-not ;v; it's one of my favourite jm fics out there)


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